


You Are the Savior of Yourself

by claudiarya



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Conversation in the Void, Crossover, Dark Feelings, Different Scene from Season 2 Stranger Things, El understands better the origin of her powers, Everybody deserves to be happy, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Girls Bonding, Idiot in Space, One-Shot, Rey and El become friends, Rey becomes a Big Sister, The Void, Things Might get Cheesy, Use of the Force, everybody needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17705771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudiarya/pseuds/claudiarya
Summary: No matter how short their ‘interactions’ lasted, when she was with him in the void she felt good and happy. Well, half-way happy.But then a few minutes passed and nobody came. No sign of Mike, no soft voice, no kind expressions. She was alone.Again. In the dark.Eleven started panicking because he never missed a night before. Not once. Where was he? Was he hurt? Was with the girl she saw that morning at the school? Too preoccupied with these kinds of thoughts, she didn’t immediately notice that another figure had entered the void.When Eleven turned to find another person there, she gasped with a mix of fear and surprise. In front of her was a girl a bit older than herself, maybe in her early 20’s. The girl was seated crossed legged with her hands on her knees, eyes closed.--------------------------------------After her fight with Hopper, El tries to communicate with Mike in the void. Little did she know that she would enter it not to find Mike,but a stranger. A girl with powers not dissimilar to hers...





	You Are the Savior of Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I had the plan to write a crossover fanfiction for a while now. I've written stories before, but never published them, so this is my first official work. 
> 
> While watching Stranger Things for the thousandth time, I started wondering what could be if El were to be transported into the Star Wars Universe, and this little one-shot came to life. I'm nervous also because English it's not my first language, so I apologize if there are going to be grammatical mistakes or awkward sentences. 
> 
> Without further ado, I'll leave you to the story!!

 

**You are the Savior of Yourself**

 

Suffocated, that’s how Eleven felt in that moment. Suffocated and consumed by the darkness swelling up inside her chest. She didn’t know how things have gotten to that point. To the point to which she hurt Hopper with her powers and managed to crash all the glasses of the wrecking cabin she had been put in. To wait.

Now the girl found herself in the corner of her small room crying her eyes and heart out. Unable to do anything else and drained of energy for having used her powers with such strength. Eleven could not understand why she became stronger when she released her anger and her fears, but she just knew that when that happened, a strange feeling of being taken by complete darkness filled her every senses. And that left her with a sensation of hopelessness that took her breath away.

Eleven did not know how much had passed since the fight, but she still was on the floor, head buried in her arms. Hopper did not make any attempt to talk to her, assuming it would be for the best leaving the young girl to deal with herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about what happened with him, how she screamed and let go of the frustration accumulated for the 351 days.

And that left her scared of herself and the immense intensity of her powers. In the moment she felt so utterly and completely alone. So, inevitably, her thoughts shifted to Mike. How much she missed him and his gentle manners. His kind smiles and the way he always worried about her and cared about her. But as everything else, she was even able to destroy him, to rob him of his brightness.

She knew that her disappearance had left a hole in him, that was starting to eat him from the inside and that made him act in certain ways foreign to him and his kind spirit. “You’re the last thing he needs right now”, Hopper once told her, when in the grip of anger she screamed that she needed to see him.

That left Eleven torn apart because she knew deep down that those word were true.

However, she also knew that Mike and her needed to be together to be complete and at peace. These thoughts of desperation and longing, made her hate herself even more. She didn’t deserve him, she was just an experiment gone wrong with unusual capabilities. A freak. A MONSTER. Still, for her own sanity, she needed to see him, hear him talking to her with that soft voice he always reserved for her, even though she couldn’t answer him back.

Therefore, she pushed her tired limbs from the floor, went to the small bed in the center of the room and reached for the cloth se used to enter the void. Next she picked up the walkie-talkie that served her as their canal of communication.

She sat on the bed, cloth tightened behind her head and walkie-talkie ready. After a big breath, she entered the void. Darkness surrounded her, but this was another kind of darkness, this type was almost comforting because she knew that in a few seconds she would have seen Mike, heard his voice. In a few seconds she would feel complete. No matter how short their ‘interactions’ lasted, when she was with him in the void she felt good and happy.

Well, half-way happy.

But then a few minutes passed and nobody came. No sign of Mike, no soft voice, no kind expressions. She was alone. Again. In the dark. Eleven started panicking because he never missed a night before. Not once. Where was he? Was he hurt? Was with the girl she saw that morning at the school?

Too preoccupied with these kinds of thoughts, she didn’t immediately notice that another figure had entered the void. When Eleven turned to find another person there, she gasped with a mix of fear and surprise. In front of her was a girl a bit older than herself, maybe in her early 20’s.

The girl was seated crossed legged with her hands on her knees, eyes closed. Eleven noticed that she was wearing strange clothes as well, so much different than the worn out jeans and old shirt Hopper provided for her to wear. She had some kind of strange sleeves wrapped around her arms and a pair of cropped pants that finished under her knees. Her hair was loose on her shoulders and only a little ponytail kept it from going in her face. Eleven blinked.

That was strange, she’d never seen that girl, how was it possible that she was here? The seated girl must have sensed another presence beside her, because she instantly opened her eyes and stared straight right into Eleven’s eyes.

Her gaze revealing a veil of disappointment and, was that sadness? As if she expected to find someone else before her eyes. The girl with strange clothes stood up. Eleven realized that before she hadn’t noticed how pretty her features were.

“Who are you?” “Where am I?” asked the older girl with concern and interest in her voice at the same time.

Eleven was too stunned to answer, and also a bit scared to face a stranger. The pretty lady must have noticed her frightened expression, an expression she recognized far too easily, since she had wore it herself many times, and then started moving slowly towards the singular kid with short, curly hair. When she was near enough, she leaned down a little in order to study Eleven’s face better.

“What’s your name?” she asked again, this time with a reassuring smile on her face.

“ You can tell me, I won’t hurt you”.

But Eleven was still too shy with this new presence, so she just rolled up her sleeve to show the other girl her tattoo.

As she had done almost a year ago when Mike had found her.

“Eleven?” the girl questioned her, with a quizzical look on her face.

Eleven nodded and then indicated herself.

“Your name is Eleven?” she asked with surprise.

The kid seemed to have found her voice again because she replied weakly with a “Yes”.

“Oh so you know how to speak! Nice to meet you Eleven, my name’s Rey” said the older girl still with a peaceful smile on her pretty face.

This time Eleven mastered her fears and asked “How are you here?” “I don’t know you!”

“I don’t know… I was meditating, and I think that somehow you summoned me here”.

“Summoned?” asked the kid, small frown on her face “What does it mean?”.

“Oh…” said Rey not expecting that question. “Well… it means when you call someone to meet them”.

“Summoned” repeated the curly haired under her breath as if to impress the new word in her brain, then added a quiet “Thank you”.

“So… you didn’t call me here?” asked Rey.

“No, I just wanted to see Mike”.

“How can you do it here? It’s like a void…” stated the older girl with curiosity.

Eleven frowned again and then tried to explain how she usually entered the void. “I don’t know, I close my eyes, breath and I think about Mike and he comes before my eyes”.

“And he can see you and talk with you?” asked again Rey, as if she somehow knew how the connection worked.

“No, only I can see and hear him… I cannot talk to him. Well I could, but I don’t” said Eleven “I’m the last thing he needs right now” she quickly added with a desperate tone.

“Eleven” –

“El”

“What?”

“You can call me just El” said the girl.

“Ok, El” continued the young Jedi “would you mind if I come closer and try something? I promise it won’t hurt. I just want to understand better”.

El looked at her with suspicion at first, but since the older girl was looking at her with a reassuring expression she just nodded.

“If you feel uncomfortable, just tell me ok?” Rey asked, and once again El simply nodded.

El didn’t know why but she felt like she could trust this strange girl who had appeared out of nowhere. On top of that, she almost felt like a pull towards her, because she sensed something, like a benign force she could trust.

So, when Rey came closer to her and put a small and delicate hand on top of her head, she couldn’t help herself but to stare at the older girl. She had graceful features and a splash of freckles graced her face. Before she could stop herself, Eleven blurted out the first thing she thought when she saw the girl seated.

“You are pretty!” said El with almost a reverent look on her face. El had wished many times since that day Mike and the others brought her to school with that blond wig, that she could have long hair.

Evidently, Rey didn’t expect that confession because she blushed a little and gave her a small smile while saying: “Thank you! You are very pretty too”.

Possibly El’s face flushed to a shade of red never registered, but before she could say anything else, the young Jedi closed her eyes and searched among Eleven’s memories.

A gentle touch, trying not to hurt her. She knew well how uncomfortable could be having a person rummaging through your head.

What she found in the younger girl’s mind left Rey shocked. So much pain. So much loneliness. The girl felt always afraid and trapped in her own feelings. Most importantly though, she found out what she suspected: the strange kid could somehow use the Force! But… but the use of it cost her physical distress. It weakened her and broke her body.

Rey dug deeper, still careful not to be too intrusive, and saw that El had spent pretty much her whole life in a lab. Treated like an experiment rather than a human being. She saw the types of things she was forced to do, and the punishments she had to endure if she couldn’t or didn’t want to comply to what she was put to the test that day. Consisting mostly in being locked in a dark room. Every day the same torturous routine…until she managed to escape.

In the woods near the place that had kept her prisoner for all of her life, she encountered a gang of kids that helped her. She saw how much she cared for a gangly boy - that Rey understood to be the famous 'Mike'- quite tall with dark hair and brown eyes that reminded Rey of someone else…

She sensed all the horrors she had to witness, her fighting a horrible monster with flower shaped mouth to save her friends. Her disappearance in the forest, the struggles to stay alive in the advancing winter, her numbing hunger...

Her relief in being found by a big bearded man with a kind smile… But the joy she initially felt, faded quickly and the problems started. Rey then saw El listening and watching the dark-haired boy counting the days she was missing.  How the young girl started feeling once again like an animal in a cage. T

he last thing Rey saw before leaving the girl’s mind was El screaming at the big bearded man because she “needed” to see Mike, and their fight because she sneaked out in secret from the cabin she lived for her safety, to go meet him.

Eleven had used an incredible amount of power to throw a book back at the man that was reprimanding her, then to close the door with a flick of her hand only to end it by breaking all the windows of the cabin. All because she felt so much anger. So lonely.

When Rey pulled back, she gasped and found out that some tears had escaped her eyes. Rey looked once again in Eleven’s eyes and recognized herself in those eyes, but not only herself, she saw in El the strife of another person she knew…

The young Jedi took in a breath wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and then started speaking.

“I hope it didn’t hurt?!” she asked the girl with an expectant look.

“N- No!” answered El.

And indeed she hadn’t felt anything, she had just observed as the older girl seemed to be looking at something she couldn’t even if her eyes had remained closed.

Rey thought that she had to help Eleven in any way she could. Release at least a little of her immense pain.

“Good, I’m glad” the older girl beamed.

“Eleven, you see, I’m just like you” she then finished.

“Like me?” echoed the younger one.

“Yes! I can do the same things you can.” Continued Rey, and noticing a dubious frown on El’s face she started removing one of her arm-wraps and placed it in her palms.

Once again, she closed her eyes. Within seconds Rey felt the Force immerse her, and by letting it flow through her the arm-wrap started levitating.

After that, Rey opened her eyes to study El’s expression; El looked at the girl with her mouth agape and incredulous eyes. Before she could start speaking the arm-wrap fell once again lifeless in Rey’s hands, who then started putting it back on.

“Ho-How?” stuttered El… “I thought I was the only one”.

“No El, you are not alone!” smiled Rey and that words ringed in her own ears as a distant, melancholic memory.

Those same words had been said to her when she most needed them. But now… now they only brought her pain and an unshakable feeling of not being completely whole. It was like something invisible was grasping her heart and squeezed it until she lost her breath.

“Actually, there are others… others like us, you know”, continued Rey while looking down with a distant look in her eyes.

“Really? That means we- we are not the only ones?” asked Eleven with surprise.

“No… exactly” answered Rey.

“Tha-that’s good. I- I don’t want to be alone anymore” suddenly El said. “I need to see Mike, but I can’t… Hopper says I’ll just put him in danger. And I know it’s true. I just… don’t want to be the monster anymore” she finished with a low tone.

Rey marveled at her words that had the power to strike her even harder. “

You are not a monster El… you are just scared and lonely.” said the young Jedi.

“I know what it means to be alone” she then added. “My parents, they abandoned me when I was a child…”

“Abandoned?” asked El again with her frowny face.

“It means, they left me behind. They didn’t want me anymore”.

“I’m, I’m sorry.” echoed the younger girl with sad eyes.

Then unexpectedly she reached out with her hand and took Rey’s. The light and trembling touch of the kid, tugged, not for the first time during their encounter, at Rey’s heart.

When she looked in El’s brown eyes, her mind betrayed her once again and it started replaying a very familiar scene: the scene of a hut lit only by the flames of a dim fireplace, the pouring rain outside, the flimsy blanket around her shivering form, and the total awareness of another person who cared and knew exactly what she was feeling in front of her.

“You are not MONSTER El, understand?” The curly haired girl nodded slightly, not getting why the pretty lady’s eyes were so full of sadness.

El was about to say something, anything that could be of some comfort to Rey. But before she could start speaking, Rey beat her and told her “Just promise me you won’t use your anger, to be stronger ok? Be careful. Please”.

"Ye-yes, I’ll- I’ll try, but I don’t know how to control it” said El in an attempt to console the young woman in front of her.

“Yes… it’s easy to lose control. But when you feel angry, try to breathe and think about something else. It may seem that anger is the answer to your problems but it’s not… Trust Me”.

“Ok… how do you control it?” asked Eleven hesitantly.

“Well, at times I can’t, but then I think that I don’t want to be taken by the Darkness and become something I’m not. That usually calms me enough to think straight”.

“The important thing you have to keep in mind is to find a reason to come back to, come back to the Light” finished Rey with a small smile, eyes still glistening with unshed tears.

“A reason?” asked El.

“Oh, yeah, a reason is something you’d do anything for. It can be a thing, or a person. It depends.” the young Jedi carefully explained.

“I- I think I have a reason. Mike. Mike is my reason. But what if this reason hurts you?”

“What do you mean by ‘hurts you’?”

“Today, I went out and tried to meet him, but when I was in the school… I- I saw him speaking with another girl” said Eleven, with an angry and at the same time pained tone. “I… it hurt, here” she said pointing at her chest. “And I was angry at him and at that girl… How can he be my reason even when he hurts me?” asked the curly haired girl.

And then added “Do you have a reason?”

Evidently El believed that Rey could provide her with all the answers she needed.

At her question Rey blinked, not really sure what to say or how to say it.

She herself was in a quite similar situation at the moment. How much in common had these two lonely children? Rey finally seemed to have found the courage to try and answer to El’s questions.

“You see El, I don’t know what to say… I thought I’d found a reason… but I was wrong and that reason hurt me in every way possible, and everything started to lose sense. I think I have to rephrase what I’ve said before. Sure find yourself a reason to help you fight the darkness within you, but don’t let it consume you, eat you alive”

“Because, in the end, you are the only one who can save yourself. No matter how hard others try to be there for you, and solve all of your problems” “Understand?” finished the girl with a sad smile on her face.

When this strange connection had initially started, Rey couldn’t have foreseen that it was going to help her deal with the contrasting feelings torturing her very soul.

This encounter with this broken child helped her in more ways than one. She only hoped that it had been helpful for El as well.

“I think I understand…” finally El said “I’m going to try my best not to let the anger control me. I promise”.

“Good girl, that’s a start! I’m sure you’ll be great” finished Rey looking down, chocked up by the situation.

If only would have been so easy convincing another…

Eleven must have noticed something because, overcoming her fears, she touched again the hand of the pretty girl.

“Don’t be sad. I- Everything will be fine”. The roles were inverted now. When Rey raised her head to say something to the kind words of the kid, she saw that a trickle of blood was coming out of El’s nose.

Just like she had seen in her memories. Using the Force, being in the void with her, was taking a toll on El’s body and it was weakening it. Rey had to do something.

She couldn’t bear the thought of El being hurt physically because of their meeting. She had to end the connection somehow.

“El, your nose… I, I have to leave. I’m sorry”.

“NO! Wait!” El cried out while wiping her nose on the cuff of her worn-out shirt. She didn’t want to end the only moment of peace and belonging she had had in months.

“I’m sorry, I really am, but this is too much for you… Please remember always what I told you. Hold on to your reason but, don’t let it consume you. And most importantly believe in yourself. You are the key, you are the savior of yourself”.

“Please Rey, wait! Don’t leave me here” cried again the little girl growing more and more frantic with each word.

“Don’t worry young one. Perhaps one day, we will meet again… until then: MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU”. After that she started disappearing from El’s view. “

Don’t go. Come back please” only whispered the girl to thin air.

She was alone once again, in the void.

With a desperate gesture she removed the cloth covering her eyes, now full of tears, and wiped again the blood from her nose with the sleeve.

Staring blankly at the room around her, Eleven tried to remember everything the pretty girl, with immensely sad eyes had told her.

However, one thought was lingering in her mind: “What is Force?”

She guessed that next time she saw Mike, because now she knew that she had to meet him again, she would ask him.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In another lonely and empty room, in a galaxy far far away, a young woman with strange clothes seated silently and thought back to what had happened with the curly haired girl with deep eyes… until she felt it again.

A tug at her chest. The noises of space around her became quite. In front of her, this time appeared a dark and tall figure.

However, this time she was ready, this time she would believe in herself an would find the strength to face her own reason.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on my tumblr https://claudiarya.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> I don't have a big blog, but it is always nice to meet new people. :)


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